Special Collections, Cleveland State University Library A publicity photo of Paige Palmer in one of her typically fashionable exercise outfits.

Paige Palmer, a shapely and fearless television pioneer who brought fitness and fashion to generations of Greater Clevelanders, died early Saturday. She was 93.

Marvin Fong, PD Paige Palmer in 2005"Hers is a feminist story without the bra burning," said Jean Druesedow, a friend of Palmer's and director of the Kent State Museum, which features fashion and decorative arts.

While everyone knew her as Paige Palmer, the worldly, unflappable woman who demonstrated scissor-kicks and jumping jacks in black fishnet stocking and pumps, she was born Dorothy Rohrer in Akron, one of four children who grew up during the Depression.

She went to work at 12, serving as a lifeguard at the YWCA. At 16, without the knowledge of her parents, she rented a house on Akron's Portage Path and opened the School of Expression. She planned to teach dance and persuaded friends to teach what they knew-- things like knitting or how to play the saxophone.

Her parents learned of their daughter's entrepreneurial venture only when she sent them an invitation to the school's opening. It was a success. Most of the children on Akron's West Hill attended. And by the time Palmer was 18, she was physical-education director at Our Lady of the Elms, a private Akron girls school.

She had already launched a career, but backed it up with education, enrolling at the University of Akron. She majored both in what she loved -- physical fitness -- and what was acceptable for women at the time -- home economics, where women learned everything from how to make a stylish dress to how to throw a dinner party.

"I think that shows that she was very innovative. She knew it was important to have a home and she knew it was important to keep a healthy life," Druesedow said.

She parlayed that knowledge into a TV career in 1942, after someone sent a picture of her toned legs into something called "The Perfect Figure Contest."

Palmer won, and that catapulted her to New York City, her first job in television and travel across the United States, where she mingled with fashion's elite and celebrities. Meanwhile, back in Northeast Ohio, Cleveland's first TV station, WEWS, was trying to expand. It hired Palmer in 1948 for a 15-week run on Channel 5.

She was such a hit, she stayed 25 years.

Many Northeast Ohio stay-at-home moms -- and their children -- tuned their black-and-white televisions to Palmer's one-hour show five days a week.

Palmer -- known as "The First Lady of Fitness" -- lectured them about the benefits of exercise, nutrition and fashion.

But she also pushed women to break down traditional barriers of the time, urging housewives to turn their hobbies into businesses so they wouldn't be wholly dependent on the money their husbands brought home. And she preached about the importance of yearly Pap tests -- a taboo topic for television at the time.

Palmer patented exercise equipment, marketed exercise fashions under the Paige Palmer label and rubbed elbows with fashion's elite, like Oleg Cassini, who made dresses just for her.

"Paige was one of a kind," Betty Cope, a former WEWS director and producer, said Saturday. "Somehow or another she invented herself and fit right into a new thing called television."

Until recently, Palmer lived in a secluded house in Bath Township. When a reporter visited in 2005, Palmer remained a fashionista -- dressed in the latest style.

But the woman once known for her powerful legs depended on a cane to help her walk.

The cane didn't detract from her look, Palmer said. "A cane is very chic," she insisted, holding up what looked like a twisted piece of glass licorice so a reporter could get a better look.

"In Europe everyone uses walking sticks. I see old people shuffling around here, all bent over, and I want to say to them, 'Why don't you get a cane?' "

Palmer's TV career ended in 1973, when she was diagnosed with Meniere's syndrome, a condition that affects the sense of balance. She knew she couldn't fall down on television, friends said.

But her star power remained, even now.

Several weeks ago, she was looking forward to public television interviewing her at Sumner on Ridgewood, the Akron nursing home she had moved to within the past year, Druesedow said.

Palmer could hardly walk, Druesedow said, but she was sharp and stayed true to what she always preached.

During one of Druesedow's last visits, she and Palmer went to an activity room and played catch with a squishy ball the size of a honeydew melon.

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